The present invention relates to apparatus and methods of making beverage straws, stirring sticks and the like, and more particularly to equipment and procedures employed in gathering such items preparatory to packaging.
Typically, drinking straws, stirring sticks and other beverage stems are manufactured from polypropylene or other suitable polyolefins and are extruded into a continuous, tubular advancing supply. The hot and semi-solid tubular supply is then guided through an elongated water bath where it is cured. After the leading end of the supply emerges from the bath, it is segmented at regular intervals by a rotating blade. The length of the resulting straws or stirring sticks is determined by the time interval between cuts and by the speed of the advancing supply.
Most beverage stems are extremely lightweight and, especially if fabricated from synthetic resin material, develop a static charge during manufacture. In the past, the leading end of the advancing supply projected outwardly into space on the opposite side of the cutting mechanism from the main body of the supply. The cutter then lopped off this outwardly projecting end of the supply to form the desired straw or stir stick. Ideally, the beverage stem would then fall onto a collecting surface where it would be easily collected for packaging. In practice, however, the individual straws tend to scatter when severed from the supply. Their lightness and static charge causes them to stray in all directions under the impact of the blade and the air turbulence created by the rotating cutting mechanism. A substantial amount of waste results, as many of the straws or stirrers drop outside of the collecting area and become contaminated. Those that land on the collecting surface are so randomly positioned as to require almost constant attention by the person responsible for gathering and packaging them. Thus, the rate of manufacture was limited, to a degree, by the speed of the attendant. In addition, the wall thickness and, hence, material content of each beverage stem could not be reduced below a certain level because the cost of retrieving and gathering them would eliminate any savings in raw material.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,441,637 issued Apr. 29, 1969 to H. E. Davis discloses a moving conveyor belt onto which stirring sticks drop after being cut from an advancing supply. A baffle is positioned near the discharge end of the conveyor to back up the stirring sticks in parallel relation to one another. The stirrers are then manually removed from the conveyor and suitably packaged. While the moving conveyor and collecting baffle disclosed in the Davis Patent made the attendant's task somewhat easier, the beverage stems remained free floating during the cutting stage to scatter in every direction.
In contrast to the gathering apparatus disclosed in the Davis Patent, the present invention prevents the beverage stems from scattering by controlling their movement from the time they are severed from the advancing supply until they reach a holding receptacle. U.S. Pat. No. 3,180,481 issued Apr. 27, 1965 to Brause which, along with the Davis Patent, represents the closest prior art known to the inventor, teaches the use of conveyors and rotary brushes bearing some resemblance to a portion of the feeder for the present invention. The Brause Patent, however, concerns the apparatus employed in moving paper through a document sorter and lacks the continuous control devices employed in the present invention to gather drinking straws, stirrers and other beverage stems.